


Finish Him!

by HyacinthusAmongUs



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gamer AU - Freeform, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-01-14 10:16:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 19,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1262566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyacinthusAmongUs/pseuds/HyacinthusAmongUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nico "CerberusDNA" di Angelo signed up for a YouTube channel, he wasn't thinking he'd end up qualifying for a position in the World Street Fighter Tournament. But, here he was, with none other than Percy "Oceanus93" Jackson and Jason "TheLupus" Grace, ready to take it to the streets in the name of Indy horror gamers everywhere.</p><p>He only has to keep his past hidden from his fans, not get killed by crazy fans, conquer his dumb feelings and stop his two best friends from killing each other. And there's also the whole thing where he has to beat the most sophisticated and violent cheating circle in the history of gaming. All in a days work, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, we need more Gamer!AUs, love it~.

Chapter One

His footsteps echoed loudly throughout the empty hallway, lights flickering as Nico went on. He checked each door, reloading his empty magazine when he found a safe spot. The thudding that had been fading in and out for the past ten minutes started up again, so Nico kept moving, finding a sign at the end of the hall. Of course it was covered in blood, and of course it pointed him straight to the Psych ward. A doll on the ground caught his eye, and Nico crouched down, examining the doll.

“Who the fuck makes tiny straight jackets?” He asked aloud, picking up the bloody doll. It looked vaguely important, so he kept the trinket, continuing on his directed path. “Always the Psych ward. Why can’t I ever tour the orthopedic-“

He was cut off by a loud sound to his right, forcing the urban explorer to whip around, gun held up.

“What the fuck was that?”

“RUN!”

A figure appeared at the end of the hall, blood dripping from its mouth, a skeletal hand reaching out towards Nico. Nico fired a shot, only to see the bullet land on its skinned leg, tendons snapping and reforming after the bullet hit. Suddenly, the creature went from across the hall, to right in his face.  


Nico screamed, firing his gun off erratically. The monster hissed above him, diving down and catching him right below the ribs, with its skeletal hands and tossing him across the room like he weighed nothing. He hit the wall with a loud thud, filling Nico’s vision with red.

_Game over._

Nico ripped off his headphones, yelling in frustration. He slammed his forehead down on his desk, looking up to the comments on his stream.

“Yes, I understand that fucker was invincible, pardon me for shitting myself,” he addressed the commentators. “But seriously, who the fuck made that?”  
He started the game up again, getting further than his last three attempts, tuning out the comments and focusing on the game. He nearly made it all the way that time, when the boss threw him through a wall again and he nearly punched out his monitor.

“Jesus, I hate this game. Calling it in guys, what’s next-“

He looked down at his buzzing phone, reading the text from Percy and making some vague comment about his ‘super professionalism’.

_Show us some Tekken, nerd :p_

He read the text aloud for his fans, who seemed to enjoy the idea of the Oceanus watching an Indy horror gamer like Nico.

“What do you think? Should I show him what he’s up against this Saturday?”

The comments lagged with the force of their collective “FUCK YES”, and so, with a chuckle, Nico loaded up Tekken 5 and started slamming his fingers down across the keys, pulling off enough combo’s to blast through the fights. Every dumb mistake was met with a loud string of curses, but as he played, he improved, his commentary more lively and his murders more vicious. The fans loved it, slamming down on their caps-lock, but Nico paid no mind. This was what he lived for, the buzz of adrenaline working through his blood, the pulsing music playing like a heart-beat, synched with his own racing pulse, the sounds, the dialogue boxes that he plowed through on his way to destroy even more opponents. He almost finished the story campaign before he noticed the light peeking into his office and realized it was morning. 

“Oh, damn, Apollo cometh,” Nico joked, pausing the game. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head and popping his sore back. When he checked his clock, he realized he'd been at it for almost four hours, an impressive feat even for the insomniatic gamer. “Fuck, it’s bed time. You guys good with this?”

He smiled at the wildly positive responses pouring in, taking a drink from his water. He pulled up the webcam, giving a personal touch to his tired goodbye. Through the view finder he could see the dark bags under his eyes, and he brought a hand up to brush through his messy black hair. He remembered last minute the promise he'd made at the beginning of the stream and pulled his shirt collar aside, exposing the saran-wrapped skin. "It's hard to see now because it's all covered, but this tattoo is in Latin. _Ad astra_ ," he said, the Latin falling off his tongue gracefully, but pierced by an Italian accent that normally lay docile under Nico's tongue. "It means 'to the stars'. It's for a friend of mine that died a few years back. I'll have to tell you guys about that sometime," the gamer promised, tucking away his tattooed skin. The others littered his skin like battle scars, tribute to fallen friends. Bianca's nickname for him, soldatino, was on the back of his shoulder, lying over his heart, and the Greek word for wisdom was across his left hip. He had other tattoos, like the skull on his arm, a small piece of the sleeve he'd been working on since the age of eighteen, a swirling mess of vines and wires weaving in and around the macabre bones, but these meaningful tattoos meant infinitely more to him, and being able to share them and their stories was part of what made Nico glad he'd hit the sign-up button on YouTube so long ago. Realizing he'd spaced out, Nico sheepishly apologized to his waiting viewers, continuing on with his address. 

“I’ll be posting blogs from the Street Fighter tournament, so all of you get to see me kick Oceanus’ ass,” he informed his fans, picking out the blue text that came in from the comment section.

_You_ _wish, dead head~_

“Love ya too, Perce,” he said cheekily, immediately watching the blue text be flooded over by screaming fangirls. “Anyway, I’ll be in Chicago for the length of the tournament, five days, so if you live in the area or want to come and just say hi, probably stalk me because you’re all creepy motherfuckers..." He trailed off, remembering his last run-in with a crazy fan with a shiver. He didn't let it get to him, continuing with his message. " _Anyway_ , come share the love, all the gamers are having a meet up, and Oceanus and Lupus agreed to a panel, so I’ll be hanging out with those dumbasses all weekend, you’re welcome shippers. I expect only the highest caliber of unrealistic smut, ya creeps. New playthroughs up this Thursday and Friday, and I’ll be uploading while I’m in Chicago. Good night!”

He waited for a few seconds, his fans wishing his goodnight, then ended the stream, sighing contently. Another text appeared on his phone, and he checked it with a grin.

_We’ll see if you’re that confident after round one, dead head <3 _

Nico’s phone rang once more, this text from Lupus himself.

_nice stream, ni. can’t wait to see you on fri._

Nico rolled responded to both the texts, then shut down his computer.

“See you Friday, assholes.”


	2. Chapter 2

C2

Nico looked down at his phone nervously. Percy had supposedly been on the same flight that he had been on, although between several asshole flight attendants and their seating arrangements, he hadn’t seen the other. Now, Nico was just waiting with his backpack and his small suitcase, texting Percy to try and locate the other gamer.

_“Run.”_

Nico would’ve probably broken something had Percy not caught his fist halfway through an attempted right hook. He looked up at Percy, the grinning asshole that stood more than a foot taller than him, aggressively frowning at the other.

“I could’ve hurt you, you dumbass,” Nico hissed, rolling his eyes.

“Nice to see you too.”

Nico tried to keep a straight face, but ended up cracking up, shaking his head. “You’re a fucking dumbass, _Oceanus_.”

The taller gamer rolled his eyes. “Whatever, _Cerberus._ ” 

Nico took the other in, appreciating Percy for the first time in person instead of over a grainy webcam or a poorly-angled vlog. He was taller than Nico expected, but then again, Nico was a short guy, so everyone was taller than he expected. His hair was dark like Nico’s, but where the younger gamer just tucked it under a beanie and let it do its thing, Percy obviously managed his much better, styling it up so it didn’t fall in his eyes like Nico’s did. His eyes were bright, a green-blue that reminded Nico of the San Francisco Bay from when his half-sister Hazel dragged him to go see it. His features were ruggedly handsome, his smile pure ivory and his arms well-toned from his days as a swimmer. Nico could feel a blush rise to his cheeks when the older gamer wrapped one of those arms around his shoulders to direct him towards the door.

“You’re shorter than I pictured, Neeks,” Percy commentated, causing the aforementioned shorty to roll his eyes. 

“The anger adds a couple inches,” he said offhandedly. Percy opened his mouth like he was about to comment, but Nico put a hand up without even looking away from his phone. “Har-har, dick joke, we’re second graders, and scene.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “That’s my dead head.”

“All my fans are shipping us because of that stream now, asshole,” Nico pulled up his email and showed Percy one of the raunchy fanfictions someone had sent him. He skimmed over it with mild difficulty, fuck dyslexia, but must have gotten the gist of it because he started laughing hysterically, causing several disgruntled travelers to look their way.

“People send you this stuff?”

“All the time,” Nico nodded, taking his phone back. He didn’t admit that he’d actually read some of the stories (the one’s with plot, of course) during his free time. Shippers just loved The Big Three, as their fans nicknamed them, the three gamer channels with names rooted in Greek mythology: Oceanus93, TheLupus and Nico himself, CerberusDNA. They’d been independent at first, but a strong alliance formed after a few months of working on gaming, and the moment they opened up to their fans about their friendship, their fanfiction writers saw Helen and launched a million (relation)ships. Nico wouldn’t admit it for threat of dying of embarrassment, but he really enjoyed how artistic his fans were. Even if they were totally creepy.

“Oh hell yeah, they ship us hard. But then again, they also ship Jason and me, and Jason and you, so they’re just weird all around.”

Percy laughed. “You and Hercules? I can’t see that. I’m pretty sure you guys know each other to well for dating to be a thing you can do.”

The Indy gamer shrugged, nodding his head. He really was amazingly close to Jason, for never having seen the guys face. He was the least public of the Big Three, never vloging or sharing his face. That was going to change for the Street Fighter Tournament though: can’t hide in a room full of cameras. Nico was really excited to actually see his friend face to face. He’d been nurturing the smallest of crushes on Jason, something about his smooth voice and his friendly nature that made Nico’s knees weak. “But you and I or you and Jason?” Nico asked, raising a brow.

He shrugged, looking thoughtful. “I mean, Jason seems like a cool dude. I could see dating the guy.”

Nico glanced at the other, surprised. “You’d date a guy?”

“Not any guy,” he shrugs. “I mean, I have a type.”

“I didn’t know-“

“I’m bi? I’m pretty sure Jason is too. He’s too nice to turn someone away because of gender or anything,” Percy teased. “And I’m 80% sure every YouTuber is at least a little gay.”

“Yeah,” Nico mentioned, idly tugging on the hem of his shirt. He didn’t make eye contact with Percy, sure the other would be able to tell his secret from his face. As much as he’d tried to hide it from his mother and sister, Nico always felt transparent when his sexuality was concerned. Now that they were gone, he knew he had no reason to hide it, but old habits die hard, and Nico was still very uncomfortable on the subject of sexuality. “When you play videogames for a living you have to be equal opportunistic.”

Percy laughed, dragging Nico through the doors and out into the busy Chicago street. “Amen, Nico, amen.” 

 

The hotel was packed with other qualifiers milling around the lobby. The room buzzed with excited chatter, nervous energy thrumming through the air like a fast pulse. Nico couldn’t help but smile, surrounded by his people and poised to compete in an international gaming tournament.

“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” he told Percy as the stood in line to get to the front desk. The older gamer laughed good-naturedly at the younger boy, patting him on the shoulder.

“Well, then it’s going to be sad when I beat you.”

Nico flipped him off without a second glance, approaching the front desk with Percy in tow. 

“Percy Jackson and Nico di Angelo,” the older gamer told the woman patiently manning the desk when Nico made it obvious that he wasn’t able to speak, biting his lip nervously and sensing the woman an apologetic smile. Just that action made his heart race and his skin crawl. 

_Not Gaea,_ he told himself, focusing on the woman’s eyes. _Blue, not brown. Safe._

The clerk must have put up with her fair share of social anxiety, because she didn’t even blink. She checked them in with a sympathetic nod, handing over the keys to the suite they would be sharing with Jason. The two made their way to the elevator, where Percy turned a raised brow to Nico.

“I have trouble with strangers,” Nico told his feet, embarrassed.

“Was it because she was a stranger or because she was a girl?”

Nico bit his lip. “Not fair,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You can’t just push away every member of the fairer sex away just because of what happened with Gaea,” Percy sighed, leaning against the mirrored wall of the elevator. An infinite among of Percy’s followed suit, and Nico found it easier to watch them than stare at the real gamer. “And I know Jason is better suited for the emotion thing, but honestly? You should probably talk to someone about this whole thing.”

The younger gamer tugged on the hem of his shirt, looking everywhere but at Percy. “I talk about it.”

“I meant with a professional.”

Nico wanted to tell Percy that he’d tried, honestly, but that was a can of worms he wanted to stay closed. Percy hardly even knew anything about Gaea, just that she’d done a number on Nico’s already crippled self-worth a few years back and that the younger boy had a restraining order against the much older woman. He could probably connect the dots if he tried, but something about Nico’s haunted look whenever she came up made him put that topic away on a shelf labeled _Do Not Tamper With._

A lot of things involving Nico were packed onto that narrow shelf nowadays. 

Seeing that he was getting nowhere, Percy just forced a smile and let it drop, promising himself they'd get to it later. “I just want to make sure you’re okay Nico. I want to kick your ass when you’re at your best.”

Nico rolled his eyes, nevertheless thankful for the subject change. “Just giving me a chance to kick your ass, Jackson.”

The gamers smiled to each other, watched the elevator doors open before them, and stepped out onto their floor, ready to start this competition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HTML is the worst part of writing, I swear. But I'd do it for hours to get this story to work. As always, I respond to every comment, so tell me what you like, what you hate, what you want, anything, and I'll be there. <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Jason finally appears! God, writing these characters in a non-life-threatening situation is a lot harder than it seems like it would. HTML was easier this time though, so yay. Enjoy~

When Nico first started vlogging, his hands were unsteady, he had no idea how loud he was supposed to talk, and the angles of his shots sucked. He once had to retake a vlog nine times to get it right, eventually giving up and sending out a series of tweets to cover what he was going to say. It had taken him so long to get his arms to stop shaking, to correct the angles without even looking at the screen, to speak loud enough to be heard. After a year and a half of nerve-wracking self-improvement, almost 150 vlogs, and two evolutions of cameras, Nico could get a steady shot jumping off a retaining wall and have clear dialogue in the windiest of days, because his fans kept asking and he really did owe them. He could indulge them this, and so every few days, he diligently filmed little vlogs, and every time, he reigned in control of his trembling appendages. 

That obligation, however, didn’t stop his hands from shaking when he revealed Jason Grace to the world.

Their hotel room was easy to vlog in: the lightening was good, the arched ceilings helped with acoustics, and the walls were plain enough that Nico wasn't worried about blurring or glare. He set up his mock interview on the dresser, twisted his phone to the side and used the front facing camera to show off his best friend. 

“You okay?” he blond asked, noticing the shaking hands of his younger friend with a smirk. The gesture pulled at a scar at the right side of his mouth that went right through his thin lips, and although the scar could be considered an imperfection, Nico was finding it difficult to see it as anything less than remarkably attractive. Everything about Jason radiated this casual perfection, like he rolled out of bed looking like some kind of Greek Hero, from his wavy blond hair to his olive complexion, right down to the bright blue eyes that seemed to crackle with electricity. Nico blinked, snapping out the first thing he could think of to evade the mounting embarrassment he felt. 

“Absolutely swooning, over here,” he said in deadpan, forcing his hands to be steady. “But my super fucking man crush is of no consequence, because for the first time ever, I’ve got TheLupus on camera. Stalker level unprecedented here Jay.”

Grace laughed from his seat on the desk, pulling at the cord of his headphones with the biggest grin.

_Of course pretty boy has fucking awesome teeth, my life is a bad fanfiction,_ Nico thought, schooling his features.

“Am I what you expected?” The older gamer asked, the scar at the edge of his lip pulled tight with his confident smirk. Nico knew why the other was confident: his arms were toned, his face the rugged sort of handsome Victorian women swoon over, all scars and ink and sex appeal. Beyond that, he was a great, well-established gamer with a great channel and a great career in the gaming world, both in and outside of the Let's Play community, considering he was about to start voice acting for a new project at Gearbox. Jason was what every gamer aspired to be, and Nico couldn't help but feel a confusing mix of jealousy, awe and pride. Again, he took a second to respond, throwing outa defensively witty statement. 

“Considering the entire gaming community decided to be hot as hell,” Nico answered, moving into a more comfortable position on the hardwood dresser they'd both taken a seat on. Jason leaned back against the wall casually, like showing the world his face for the first time wasn't a big deal. 

“I’m flattered,” Jason smirked, wrapping an arm around Nico’s shoulders in a half-hug. “But yeah, I noticed the influx of sexy this year, gotta keep an eye open around here if you don’t want a roving fangirl jumping your bones.” His mock shiver was met with Nico's actual one, but the younger gamer did his best to play it off.

”Well, now that you’ve exposed your face, I hope you’re ready for the fan art,” the Indy gamer told him, pulling the conversation back into comfortable territory. Everyone could relate to weird fan art, a no-risk conversation for someone like Nico, whose everyday was a mine-field. Jason shared a knowing look with his best friend, which lasted half a second and was over before it could settle.

Jason mock groaned, for which Nico was thankful. “Oh god, don’t remind me, my tumblr is full of that shit,” he pulled his phone out, about to open his Safari window when Nico pushed his hand down, and with it, the phone. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” he deadpanned, holding a serious look for all of one second.

By the time that second ended, they were both laughing in the way that friends do, loud and without concern for how they looked or sounded. Jason had this laugh that made Nico feel warm inside, like he was hearing the funniest thing in the world. Nico signed off, reminding his fans of the posting times for the competition, and ended the vlog with him and Jason waving goodbye.

“Okay, that’ll keep them off my back for a while,” Nico joked, watching a quick snippet of the video to check for lighting and sound. Everything checked out, for which Nico was grateful- he wasn't up for redoing the vlog, risking the chance of running into one of his conversational land-mines. “We’re good," he told the other gamer, stretching his arms up with a tired sigh. Jet-lag made him want to curl up beneath his comforter for a week, but he had shit to do, and a best friend to ogle up. Priorities, basically.

Jason wrapped an arm around Nico’s shoulder when the other settled, leaning on him with a lazy sigh. “We’re gonna kick ass," he said, matter-of-factly, like he already knew the tournament results.

Nico rolled his eyes, leaning into the embrace. Jason was warm, a miniature furnace, and the Windy City was doing a good job of freezing the Indy gamer to the bone. He welcomed his best friend's affectionate touch enthusiastically, glad to be around Jason for the first time. “Thanks for not being all Percy ' _I’m going to destroy you_ ' Jackson on me Grace.”

The other frowned, as if something unpleasant had been mentioned, but it was gone before Nico looked up, back to Jason’s regular, shit eating grin, pulling at his scar. “Well, we’ll kick his ass in retaliation for insulting your poor honor.” Nico nodded, a grin forming on his face.

Just as Jason finished speaking the door flew open, Percy back from the lobby with drinks for the three. He mumbled something about a broken mini-fridge and how they needed ice, fumbling around in the kitchen. He kept his gaze away from the two best friends practically cuddling in the adjacent room. Nico volunteered, untangling himself from Jason and jumping down from the dresser, grabbing the bucket from the kitchen next to Percy. He told the other two gamers he’d be right back, then left. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Jason and Percy were glaring at each other, Jason standing from his seat on the dresser.

“I’m going to destroy you,” Percy told him calmly, though beneath the counter dividing them, his fists clenched.

Jason rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall and checking his phone, bored with the situation. “No, you won't, Jackson.”

Tension spread throughout the room, buzzing like electricity as the 'friends' gauged the other. Animousity was obvious between the two, a burning rage that wasn't present when Nico was in the room.

"You aren't going to make it past round one, Grace. You're going to lose, and I'm going to ruin you." 

Jason sighed, looking over at Percy. "What's this about? Nico?” Jason rolled his eyes at Percy's intense glare. "I'm not letting you get his hopes up again. After that shit you pulled with Annabeth-“

Percy was up in Jason’s face in an instant, gripping his collar. Jason dropped his phone, the hand previously holding the device coming up to grip Percy's arm.

“Don’t talk about her,” Percy said in a deadly whisper. “Or I swear, I will slit your throat, Nico’s feelings be damned.”

Jason pushed the other away, like he was shooing off a bothersome instinct. “That’s why you’re not right for him, Jackson.” He scooped up his phone and went to sit on the couch, Percy returning to the kitchen. Separated, they both took a moment to let their anger fade, schooling their features.

After a few minutes, Nico returned with the ice. Both of the older gamers smiled at Nico, happily starting up a conversation of the tournament, of YouTube, of every light-hearted topic they could bounce between the three of them. Nico had no idea the looks Percy and Jason sent each other while the young gamer wasn’t looking.


	4. Chapter 4

Before he left, Nico obsessively went over his backs, checking at least six times that he had his chargers and his medications- the things that would get him through the week. He’d bit his nails bloody and repacked everything at least twice a day for the week leading up to his flight. He’d filmed more than enough content for the time he’d be gone and brought copies in case the uploader didn’t work.

It was the first trip he’d gone on since he’d met Hazel, when he was 16. Five years later, and he’d only been on a plane twice, hardly straying from New York state lines. And after what happened in the months following San Francisco, Nico was a lot less amicable about putting his life in the hands of strangers. The entire plane ride was spent in near panic, clutching his armrests and refusing to open his eyes until they’d landed. 

He missed not being neurotic. 

_Planes are safer than cars_ a friend had once told him. She was smart, logical to a fault, and Nico took comfort in that blanket trust instilled in her that the universe would just work out. If she saw Nico like that, she would’ve laughed. _You’re safer up here than down there._

Unfortunately, she was not on that plane with him. Nico dealt with the short flight silently, not once leaning over to look at the window. He wasn’t interested in seeing the world sprawled out below them like blocks on a child’s carpet when he himself was the tin can mobile.

Their hotel suite had only two beds in a bedroom off to the side and a pullout couch in the living room. Although Jason and Percy had fought against it, Nico took the couch, claiming that his insomniac tendencies would drive whoever roomed with him nuts.

“Besides, you two have seniority, right?” he joked, assuring them for the fifth time that he’d be fine, before settling in with his laptop and the comforter he brought with him. He wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape, idly checking his channel. The uploader seemed to be working, all the content up and running smoothly. He almost clicked out, when that old feeling rose up in his chest, and he went back to his page, pulling out his headphones.

It was one of his first vlogs, one of the cringe-worthy ones that Nico remembers having to retake once or twice. But no matter how bad it was, he couldn’t bring himself to delete it.

He was just coming back from a baseball game, his first, actually, with Annabeth. She was Bianca’s friend until Bianca died, and even after she died, Annabeth was one of the few to stick around. They stayed close, because grief tends to do that to people, and even logical Annabeth wasn’t immune to that.

_“So, who’s this guy you’ve been talking about?” a much younger Nico asked the girl on screen. Her curly blond hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and tucked away under a baseball cap, wide gray eyes taking in everything around her while simultaneously focused on Nico and the camera._

_“You know him.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_Annabeth smiled. “Oceanus94.”_

_Nico on screen was comically shocked. “No way.”_

_“Why would I lie about that?”_

_“Because you’re a horrible person. We tend to attract each other,” Nico shot back without pause. Annabeth laughed, loud and unrestrained, the kind of laugh that enticed others to join her._

Nico, the real, present day Nico, smiled at the screen, running a hand along the tattooed flesh of his hip. _Wisdom_ , in Greek, was permanently marked there, a constant promise and reminder.

_”So you talked to him?”_

_“He wouldn’t shut up!” Annabeth declared with mock exasperation. “But he’s funny, and cute, so whatever. Do I have a chance?”_

_Nico paused, as if in thought. “I don’t know, I hear there was someone else.”_

_Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “Who?”_

_“Amphrite.”_

The video ended with Annabeth calling him a cheeky little shit, and Nico couldn’t help but give a sad smile as the video ended. He closed the window, staring at the black screen of his laptop. His smile faded as he thought about his last few days with Annabeth Chase.

 

_”It’s a great opportunity!”_

_“Annabeth, you’ll be miserable without your family and your friends,” Nico countered, leaning against the aspiring architect’s kitchen counter with a sigh. They’d been over this a million times: Annabeth was adamant about studying architecture in Rome, despite the fact that it meant indefinitely leaving behind everyone she knew. As much as he knew she wanted this, Nico wasn’t going to bullshit hi friend. “What about your dad? Percy?”_

_He didn’t tack on “what about me?” on to the end of that sentence, as much as he wanted to. He didn’t think he could take hearing her dismiss him like that._

_“We can stay in contact. Skype, phone calls, it’s not hard, Nico.”_

_Nico wanted to yell at her, wanted to say he knew she was bullshitting him, that he knew about people and leaving, but it wouldn’t change anything. Annabeth gave up on him. And nothing he could say would fix that gaping hole in Nico’s chest that felt like the hole left behind by Bianca had ripped itself open._

The skype calls never came. He knew her handle, and she knew his, but neither party acted on that knowledge. The hole in his chest had mended, and he’d turned his back on the logical girl that cared more about the universe and its never ceasing wonders than her friends.

_Wisdom_ , in Greek, burned across Nico’s hip,a reminder, a promise, and above all, a warning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to a friend of mine, who diligently refreshes his browser like a dumbass when he could just ask me when I'm updating. <3

Chapter Five  
The postings were up, and Nico sent out a tweet the moment he was cleared to. He was going in the second flight, same as Jason, while Percy was in the first. Immediately after the names and flights were posted, the room buzzed with conversation. Competitors were meeting and introducing themselves, friends commenting on placement, strangers coming together in the search of player 1.

“I know him,” Jason told Nico, looking at the Indy gamer’s listing. “He’s a qualifier from Tokyo, Ethan Nakamura. 26, like Percy and me, kind of surly.” He paused, as if mulling some information over. “And he only has one eye.”

“What?” Nico questioned, looking up from his phone in shock. If he’d been wearing glasses, he probably would’ve pulled them off in shock or something. But unfortunately, he was restricted to raising his eyebrows to ridiculous heights. Jason seemed unfazed by Nico’s escalating brows, checking his phone casually. 

“One eye?”

Jason nodded, looking up with a grin. “Top 50 in the qualifying ranks, blind in his left eye. I don’t know how he does it.”

Nico put his head in his hands with a loud curse. “Fuck, my ass is going to get kicked by a pirate.” 

Jason rolled his eyes, ruffling Nico’s hair. “Whatever Nico, you realize they match you based on qualifying ranks, right?”

The dark haired gamer peeked up at this, eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “What?” 

“Yeah, did you think they’d just through people together? No, they have a system to this, something about averaging scores and ranking and what not,” Jason explained, leading Nico through the packed ballroom. Outside, heavy gray clouds blocked out the sun, painting the city monochrome. Back inside, the vaulted ceilings of the lobby and the large glass chandelier hanging above them looking downright cheerful, and almost as if compensating, the contestants were decked out in a rainbow of colors. Nico almost felt self conscious in his dark jeans and leather jacket, but apparently, the Big Three had reached some unspoken consensus, because Jason was dressed similarly in jeans and a black hoodie, and from the brief peak he caught of Percy that morning in his black tee and high-tops, he was in on it too. Nico shoved his hands in his pockets, following Jason idly as he cut through the crowds, tall enough to find paths that Nico couldn’t.

“You think he’ll do okay?” Nico asked Jason’s back, eyes tracing the crowd around them for signs of Percy. He was most likely back at the ballroom, because flight one started thirty minutes earlier than the second one, but Nico was paranoid. Unfortunately, picking out a particular black tee at a gaming tournament was a Herculean task, and Nico had to give up his search before it had even really started. He turned back to Jason, awaiting his answer.

Jason shrugged, looking down at his phone again. It buzzed every few minutes, distracting the older gamer. Each time, he typed out a message, a word or two based on how fast he was getting the texts out. “Percy is pretty good at this, he’ll probably be fine,” he waved off, finding Nico and himself a seat near the entrance of the vaulted lobby. The reclined on the warm red couch, Nico pulling his phone out to send Percy a ‘good luck’ text. 

“Yeah,” he responded quietly, looking over at Jason. “What about us.”

“Team Bow-Wow is going to kick ass, don’t you start.”

Nico smiled at the dumb team name, looking back down to his phone. “How are you so confident about all this?”

Jason shrugged. “Because we’re cool, Street Fighter is cool, and that means we’re destined to clean out.” He laughed at something on his phone, putting it away in his back pocket and looking over and Nico. “Besides, you’re higher ranked than I am, and I am a BAMF. Don’t know how you do it.”

The Indy gamer nodded. “I was raised on this stuff, remember? Dad would just send me and Bianca to an arcade all day when he was busy at work. I kicked all the ass at Tekken a SF.” Nico remembers those days, when he and Bianca would meet up at the arcade after school and stage little competitions with each other, seeing who could get the most points or the best prize. He remembers when Bianca would challenge him, tucking her hair up into her bright green hat with that manic glint in her eyes they inherited from their dad. Nico won as often as he lost, but the one game he ruled over was Street Fighter. His initials filled the top ten for the entirety of the five years they visited the arcade. 

Jason smiled sadly, giving Nico a knowing glance. He hadn’t known Bianca personally, but from how much Nico talked about her, he knew he’d have liked to have had the chance. “God, you’re the worst superhero ever.”

Nico shrugged, smirking to his friend. “Or a lame villain.”

“Nah, too cute to be a villain,” Jason dismissed. Nico rolled his eyes, but couldn’t deny the blush creeping up onto his cheeks.

“Come on asshole, let’s go find the pirate that’s going to kick my ass.”

 

Of course the pirate had to be one of the hot ones. And a vlogger. Because Nico couldn’t catch breaks.

Ethan Nakamura was speaking to a camera, switching between Japanese and English, but Nico noticed several other things first. Like the wine-colored leather jacket that clung to Ethan’s slight frame, or his wind-tossed black hair, or the harsh line of his black eye-patch that cut across his face. Nico stood to the side respectfully, just listening to the other speak. His voice wasn’t soft by any means, but it was smooth, a voice Nico could understand listening to daily. By the time he’d signed off, Nico was making a mental note to check this guy out. 

“Nico di Angelo?” the Asian gamer asked, turning to his opponent with an extended hand.

“Ethan Nakamura,” Nico responded, taking the others hand in a firm handshake. “Looking forward to our round.”

Ethan nodded, smirking down at the shorter (Nico vowed to either get a step ladder or grow a few inches at this point, goddamn) gamer. “Fuck yeah. Finally, I get a challenge.”

Nico smiled awkwardly, nodding carefully. “Don’t beat me too bad?”

“Not a chance, kiddo.”

Nico laughed at that, getting an encouraging nod from Jason. “You’re on Nakamura.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Lanimal, my decidedly psychotic friend, for without her and my other third party investor setting arbitrary dates by which I schedule updates, I wouldn't have this fic running so smoothly. But also, a dedication to anyone who has read this, every commenter, and every Kudos giver. You guys make this happen, and for that, thank you<3 And if you're looking for something to read when I'm taking forever to update, check out Lanimal, because I owe her one and she's looking for a supportive fan base like I've been so lucky to find. You don't have to, but if you have some free time, check it out, leave some feedback, whatever you have time for. Here's the link:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/1336282/chapters/2784439
> 
> I have a special surprise I'll be announcing with my next update, so keep reading. And now, without further sappy shit, here's chapter six.

Nico for sure thought he was fucked when they found the room they were competing in. Well, it was actually a cubical, but the walls were high enough that no one could peek in. The space was large enough to house a table with two serviceable PC’s hooked up to knee-high processors. They were on opposite corners of the desk, with a gap between them so that players could look up and see their opponent during the rounds. The space was pleasantly dark, mostly lit by the familiar blue-tinted glow of a computer screen that Nico used to find his seat after checking that he was at the right terminal. Nico placed his phone face down on the table, per the tournament’s (highly detailed, and _strictly_ enforced) rules, and watched Ethan do the same. The red light coming from the top of the generic, black painted laptop told Nico that they were officially being recorded, something the tournament rules had already told him.

The tournament founders had done everything within their power to keep people from cheating, basically. 

“So, two out of three, no cheat codes, no god mode, total vanilla,” Ethan summarized, reading from a poster on the wall that stated those rules in what Nico counted to be six different languages- at this point, Nico was more amused that someone had gone and translated all the rules into mandarin, kanji and, of all things, _Italian_ than the fact that they’d put small text posters in a dark room when they’d gone over the rules eight times already.

“Think they’ve said it enough?” Nico joked, looking to the left off his screen and seeing Ethan’s amused smirk. It pulled at his lips in almost a taunting way, turning the edges of his features razor sharp. The eye patch was slightly pushed up with the motion, dragged upwards by his pale cheek, and Nico wondered how the hell anyone could pull off an eye patch in non-pirate times.

“Alright, ready to start?” Nakamura asked, cracking his knuckles like a bad guy in a movie. Nico couldn’t help but roll his eyes, waiting for the monologue.

“No time like the present.”

With that, they started up the match, selecting characters and picking the tournament-designated challenge. As the opening animating played, Nico glanced up at Ethan, who was studying his screen intently, his one visible eyebrow scrunched in concentration. He looked much less comedic when focused, his shoulders pulled up, his mouth a thin line and his eye, almost as dark as Nico’s own obsidian irises, as smooth and unreadable as a glass window. Nico looked back down at his screen just in time to see the countdown start up, the loud red-yellow numbers filling his vision. He took a deep breath, his hands finding the proper keys, and exhaled.  
“ _FIGHT!_ ”

 

Nico plopped down on the couch next to Percy, looking oddly disconcerted. His eyebrows were pulled together in thought, meanwhile his hands flew over the keyboard of his phone, sending a text to the in-transit Jason. Percy looked up from his own phone at Nico, who looked up just in time to catch the older gamer’s eyes.

“I won.”

Percy smiled, the expression bright on his face. “That’s great Nico.”

“I beat the pirate,” Nico repeated, like Percy wasn’t understanding what he had said. Percy’s eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Who’s the pirate?”

“Ethan Nakamura,” Jason said, plopping down on Nico’s other side with a satisfied grin. 

“Eye patch dude?”

“Yep,” Jason replied, popping the ‘p’, before turning his shoulders to address the youngest of the group. “So you beat Nakamura?”

“Somehow.”

“C’mon, don’t be modest,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “I have this theory that you’re secretly good at everything, and you just restrict yourself to shitty flash games because it makes you more likable.”

Nico scoffed, looking at Jason with a joking smile. “Guilty,” he responded, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “But I’m doing a full play of Dark Souls, so your theory is invalid.”

“Of course you’d play the game with both the words ‘dark’ and ‘soul’ in the title.”

“I played The Last Of Us,” Nico defended, looking to Percy for backup.

The other dark haired gamer laughed, rolling his eyes at Nico the way someone would when explaining a problem to a five year old. “You mean the sad as shit zombie game? When’s the last time you played something happy?”

Nico opened his mouth to respond, before realizing that the last time he’d really played something light hearted and comedic (discounting apps, which he fiddled with infrequently) were his arcade days with Bianca, back when he was fourteen and he still had some biological family lying around. It was hard for him to think that it’d been seven years since those days. He swore he could remember those days with the shitty intercoms blasting NSYNC and the loud bells and whistle and the harsh scrub of perforated ticket stubs. 

“We should go to an arcade,” he mused aloud, disinterestedly tugging at the hem of his shirt. Jason and Percy shared look, one Nico didn’t catch, before Percy put a steadying hand on the younger gamers shoulder. Nico shook his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I’m serious. When’s the last time you played an arcade game. We should go sometime, while we’re all here.”

Percy nodded, his worried expression smoothing as Nico went back to gesturing with his hands, looking much more animated than before. “Yeah, we can beat Jason at Pac Man.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but looked relieved at the statement, playfully punching Nico on the shoulder. “You two are on.”

They sat, discussing their impromptu arcade plans, until the next round was posted, and they had to rush off to their rounds.

Nico didn’t remember ever feeling so happy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sooooo late with this, because finals are day-wreckers, but I've finally got this. I'm excited for the rest of this story<3  
> Thank you so much for your wonderful responses to this story, you guys are the best.

His next round was almost too easy. Each round hardly lasted more than a few minutes, and their reactions seemed so slow. Nico almost felt bad about beating them. This was another Top 50 round, so Nico felt this should’ve been much harder. After the round, Nico tried to talk to the guy, but he just walked off in a daze. The Indy gamer didn’t want to jump to conclusions, considering he wasn’t exactly a rational person, but his opponent looked almost drugged.

“Probably just another all-nighter,” Nico muttered, rubbing his own tired eyes. He had one more round to get through, and then he could take a break.

He hardly paid attention to the walk back, tired as he was, and hardly even noticed when someone in a hotel blazer handed him a water bottle with a knowing smile.

"You look like you could use a breather," he said, straightening his jacket. Nico thanked them quietly, taking the bottle labeled with the Lotus Hotel insignia. As the concierge left, Nico went the opposite way, back to the couch that The Big Three had set up camp on. Percy was already sitting their with his phone and a bottle of coke, something Nico immediately set his eyes on. 

“Hey Neeks,” Percy said, putting his phone down to smile up at the younger gamer. He took a drink from his coke, putting it on the table only to have it snatched up by Nico.

“Hey, you have your own drink,” Percy laughed, pointing to Nico’s water bottle. The Indy gamer looked at him with his best 'get that bullshit out of here' look.

“Yeah,” Nico agreed, stealing another sip. The taste was crisp and refreshing after an afternoon spent running around between monitors. “But I need caffeine. Deal with it.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “Fine, Neeks. How did you do last round?”

“Good,” Nico sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions. “Honestly I feel like it was two easy.”

“That’s a good thing though, I mean, you’re just so good that these guys aren’t even a threat.”

Nico reached over to grab his water bottle, when Jason appeared behind them.

“Hey guys, they pushed the rounds forward, Nico, you’re in flight one, come on.”

“Son of a bitch,” Nico threw the water bottle in his backpack and rushed off to the ballroom to start his round.

 

Nico found the room empty when he got back. He threw his backpack onto the couch and checked his phone, reading the texts he'd missed over the past hour. One from Jason, asking how he did, and one from Ethan Nakamura, mentioning that he was most likely advancing. Nico's 3:0 KDR was an automatic advancement. Ethan automatically texted him back (flight one, Nico assumed), about some of the others that advanced. Nico was glad he shared his number with Ethan, because he was a good ally to have. 

After a few minutes, Jason started texting him, asking about ordering a pizza for dinner, and Percy texted him just about the same thing, so Nico went ahead and ordered, since they weren't going to be around until flight two was over. While riffling through his backpack for his wallet, he found the water bottle from earlier, it's cap slightly pen and half the contents of the bottle missing. Feeling along the bottom of his bag revealed that it was damp. 

"Son of a bitch," Nico hissed, twisting the bottle closed and tossing it down onto the coffee table with a frustrated sigh. He eventually dug out his wallet, thankfully still dry, and waited for the pizza to arrive, checking Tumblr and YouTube while he had the time.

When his phone buzzed again, Nico was surprised to see another text from Ethan.

_Someone collapsed in the lobby after round two. They just found him an hour ago._

Nico quirked a brow, asking him about it. The next text took a few moments.

_Some guy named Clovis. They took him to the hospital because he wasn't breathing. Apparently he got a laced drink or something._

Nico looked up. "Why do I-" he paused, figuring out why the name was so familiar. 

_I went against that guy in round two_ , he sent to Ethan.

_Was he acting weird then?_

_Yeah,_ Nico sighed, realizing that he was right when he assumed something was wrong. _I thought something weird was going on with him. Is he okay?_

_Yeah, he'll be fine. But hell, how's he get drugged?_

Nico had to think on that one. At conventions like these, everyone was responsible for their own refreshments. Unless someone else gave him something, it was hard to get drugged at a gaming convention. Nico was pondering who would take some random drink, when he saw the bottle on the table.

_Did they find a water bottle on him?_

__Ethan's response took a few moments. _They found a half-empty bottle in his backpack. Why?_

He put his phone down and looked at the water bottle on the table, the one the nameless, faceless concierge gave him, and he took without even thinking about it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, this story is a constellation I cannot begin to fathom, but I do it for you guys. Sorry for taking so long, I have no schedule and my arbitrary update reminders are doing stuff. I wish there was a way for you guys to click a button that just pestered the suit out of me until I updated. But alas, the technology doesn't exist. Either way, enjoy the chapter!

“What did they say?” Jason asked when Nico returned to the room, having turned in the water bottle as evidence. The younger gamer collapsed with the kind of labored sigh issued from aggressively exhausted gaming nerds after a solid two hours of police red tape.

“They have no idea where it comes from, the person I described doesn’t work here, and they only managed to find partial prints,” he explained, throwing an arm over his eyes when his phone buzzed for what must have been the twentieth time in as many minutes. “But they’re looking into it, and now they have some evidence if they ever do find the guy, so victory?”

“Any day we don’t get our asses murdered over Street Fighter is a good day,” Percy piped in, sitting on Nico’s other side. Nico nodded vaguely, checking his phone with the tired diligence of a police confidant, just to see more texts from Hazel, his half-sister. How word got from Chicago to San Fran in a matter of hours was a feat Nico didn’t begin to question (although, who’s he kidding? Jason told Piper, Piper told Leo, Leo told Frank, and the Canadian blabbed, because Nico makes friends with people as secretive as Glee characters.) The concern, however overbearing it seemed, was almost comforting to the orphan Nico. Almost. He was feeling oversaturated with support by text 15, text 20 was just unneeded. Still, he responded, letting Hazel know he was still alive, and no, he was not going to be dying by water bottle, thank you very much.

“So who did it?”

“Someone obviously trying to rig the system,” Jason mused aloud. “Clovis wasn’t an accident- top fifty. And Nico too. So, someone wanted good players out of the way.”

“Ethan’s warning everyone he knows that’s over top 75,” Nico supplemented from between the two. “He’s got a friend, Racheal or something, telling anyone he can’t get too.”

Percy shook his head. “But they can’t just poison everyone above a certain mark. What do you and Clovis have in common?”

“Aside from ranking,” Jason added.

Nico thought about it. “Well, we both won our first round, we both were expected to move on, and…” Nico paused, whipping out his phone.

“What?”

“Clovis never made it to his third round, meaning that person gets the win,” he muttered. “I need to know who he was going up against, and if they knew my third round.”

 

It took twenty minutes to find out Clovis’ schedule when they pulled up the tournament roster. 

_Round Three: Selena Beauregard v. Clovis Cimon  
Round Three: Nico di Angelo v. Luke Castellan_

“Youtube?”

“No collaborations or tags, as far as I can see,” Percy responded, searching through both of their accounts, which were evidently just for watching and commenting, considering the lack of content. 

“Twitter?”

“Clean,” Jason waved off, searching through their feeds with an intensity seldom correlated with Twitter. “Luke doesn’t even have one, Neeks. This guy’s as off the grid as you can get these days.”

Nico shook his head, refreshing the Facebook page he was visiting that sprung up less than an hour ago for Clovis. His half-brother was posting updates, bleak and laconic responses measuring the downfall of someone so alive just hours before. 

“They aren’t invisible,” Nico said, mostly for his own benefit. On a whim, he searched Luke Castellan on Facebook.

And wow, that was a page and a half to read through. 

He could almost immediately tell it was a family account, one he discovered belonged to Luke’s mom. She mentioned Luke’s ‘battle’ with bipolar disorder, listing that as the reason he was taken out of school, after an outburst she vaguely touched on, but just from subtext, Nico could tell Luke's disorder was rough. She made updates every few says on an irregular schedule, most short, but some long enough to paint a picture of who Luke was, telling the slow and disjointed story of Luke’s partial recovery, and inevitable relapse. 

_It’s getting to the point where Luke’s incidents are farther and farther between. We had a whole day together without one incident! Things are getting better, I only hope that Luke will be okay when I’m gone. Keep us in your prayers, and thank you for the kindness you’ve shared._

The Castellan family seemed unnaturally cursed: Luke’s bipolar, which levied, only to turn sharply back into dangerous territory, and May’s early onset Alzheimer, claiming Luke's only guardian at age 36. It seemed so cruel, so pointless. He was actually rooting for them to get better, which made it that much worse when the disjointed messages came in, the stuttering rants from a person having trouble forming coherent sentences, and when she could, it was about Luke relapsing, or being kept overnight at hospitals for observation. Nico almost closed the window, when he saw May’s most recent update. 

_I have to admit, I’m worried about Luke leaving for a week on his own. He had a rather rough incident a few days ago- I’m not all that sure he’s bounced back yet. He seems so angry and sad recently. I just hope this will be good for him, meeting his little friends. Selena and the others are just so excited! Wish my boy luck._

Under the post, edited what must have been a few days later, was a picture. In it was a smiling boy with straw-blond hair and a long scar down the right side of his face, from the corner of his mouth to around his ear, and beside him, a girl with long black hair and the biggest smile Nico’s ever seen. Tagged in the picture, Luke Castellan, and Selena Beauregard. 

Tagged also, the photographer. Ethan Nakamura.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter! Thanks for reading guys, I love your feedback and your comments, they seriously brighten my day<3

Ethan was waiting downstairs by the time Nico was out of the elevator, speaking into his phone in rapid-fire Japanese. Nico waited, letting him end the call, before the question came. 

“How do you know Luke Castellan?” he asked, pulling up the tagged picture on his phone and handing it to Ethan.

“His friend asked me to take a picture of them for his mom. The girl talked to me afterwards, guy was pretty weird. She asked for my number, I told her I lived in Tokyo, so she asked for my Facebook instead. I didn’t really know I still had one, I mean, haven’t logged on in years,” Ethan explained, looking over the photo. “Swear, first time I saw them was Saturday. We haven’t spoken since.”

He handed the phone back to Nico, who nodded, quietly mulling over his new information. “Did she say anything odd?” 

“Just normal ‘see you in finals’ stuff. They both seemed pretty confident that they’re going to progress.”

The younger gamer nodded. “They might have something to do with Clovis, I’m grasping at straws here.”

“I figured,” Ethan nodded, looking down at his own phone. “Let me know if you find anything. And congratulations.”

“Hmm?” 

“We both made it to the next round.”

Nico paused, looking up at the pirate. “Wait, who else advanced?” he asked, watching the elevator doors slide open to reveal a beaming Percy and Jason.

“List is on twitter, check it out,” Ethan said as parting words, before turning on his heel and walking off, just in time for the remaining two-thirds of the Big Three to appear. Jason pushed a phone into Nico’s hand, Ethan’s aforementioned twitter list pulled up, showing off the rankings and first heat of semifinals. 

_9\. Nico di Angelo_  
 _14\. Percy Jackson_  
 _15\. Jason Grace_

“Holy shit,” Nico muttered, looking at their rankings with an appreciative nod. “How many did they take?” 

“Top seventy-five,” Percy supplied. 

Jason nodded. “That’s just over a third of the people here.” 

"Marked improvement,” the youngest of the Three pointed out. “We all jumped up in the rankings, you two by at least twenty places. I’m not even going to guess how far I went up. That’s insane,” he said, handing Jason his phone. 

He shrugged, putting his phone away. “The rankings didn’t account for who we were up against in the rounds, human error.” 

Nico shook his head. “That would be more believable, if we didn’t know that someone was rigging things.” 

Jason and Percy looked at each other, and Nico could see the gears turning. Percy spoke up first. “Why would someone rig it for us?” 

Nico checked the clock, slamming his palm against his forehead. “I’m up in twenty minutes. Between now and the end of today, I need the original rankings, today’s ones, and a complete list of yesterday’s rounds.” 

“We can get them,” Percy assured, pulling out his phone. “Jason, you with me?” 

The older gamer nodded, list already pulled up. “Already on that. Couch?” 

With that, the two left, wishing Nico luck on their way out. They were working together for once, the underlying tension Nico had been picking up for the past few days seemingly gone, the taut wire pulling him in both directions cut under his watch. 

With that feeling bubbling away in some quiet corner of his heart, he prioritized, pushed the feeling back and sent a text to his pirate friend, heading for his room across the courtyard. 

_How far up in the rankings did you go? Clovis isn’t the only thing going on._

Percy was half-way through his list before he realized he was working with Jason Grace. They weren’t even asking questions or yelling at each other, the past twenty minutes spent in near-silence, aside from the rhythmic tapping of fingers on keys and screens. Jason was staring at his screen, electric blue eyes tracking names with this intensity reserved for war strategy and espionage. Percy could see why other people were intimidated by Jason: he’d hate to be on the receiving end of that kind of intensity. 

Jason looked up, catching Percy’s eyes. Sea green met electric blue, for once remaining docile, reserved. The normal crackle of animosity was buried for the time being, a temporary truce reached. 

“How far did you jump up?” Jason asked, lips set in a firm line. 

Percy looked at the list, doing the math. “28 places. You?” 

“23, and Nico’s up seventeen,” Jason summarized. “That’s not an accident.” 

“Alright, so who jumped up the highest?” Percy asked, looking at the rankings. The words jumbled up in front of him. He read and reread the names with a frustrated sigh, the letters dancing around the page. “This-“ 

Jason reached over, wordlessly asking for Percy’s phone with an expectant look. As soon as he handed it over, Grace got to work, pulling the list up, copying the list, pasting it on the Notes and resetting the font and letter sizing. “Here, try this.” 

Percy read the list, the words much more legible. “How’d you do that?” 

"Nico didn’t tell you I’m dyslexic too?” Jason asked, looking up from the screen with a raised brow. “It’s something we all have in common. Although, apparently Nico’s better than we are. I have some trouble, mainly with the whole b/d/p/q spectrum.” 

“Me too,” Pecry admitted, looking down at the list. “And some other letters. This,” he gestured to the note, “Is really helpful. Thank you.” 

Jason shrugged, turning back to his screen. “By the way, Racheal Elizabeth Dare and some guy named Butch jumped 30 places.” 

Percy shook his head. “It’s not them, I know Racheal.” 

They both paused, mulling over their findings. They both came across the answer at the same time. 

“Who moved up the least amount of times?” Percy asked. 

Jason read the screen, that intensity back in his eyes. Almost immediately, he found his answers, looking up with something between rage and fear. “Text Nico, _now_.” 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we get perspective from our villainous-duo. I hope you all enjoy.

Chapter Ten

Nico was pretty sure his fingers were bleeding. The way they were flying across the keyboard, hitting buttons like mad, he didn’t exactly have time to check. The dancing figures on screen were blurs of color at this point, almost mesmerizing. His character took a hit, flying back across the screen. “ _Fuck_ ,” Nico hissed, jumping back into the fray with the same wild determination reflected in his opponent’s. 

But it was more than that. Between rounds, Nico could see a look of contempt thrown his way over glowing monitors. Octavian was a scary guy, with his wild gold eyes and wrinkled shirt. There was this unhinged edge to Octavian’s stare, and for half a second, Nico considered throwing the round. But he couldn’t afford a loss this late in the competition. 

The second round lasted less than a minute. Octavian tried wild moves, the kind that got a player killed, and Nico was more than okay with capitalizing on his failures. In the end, Nico lost maybe a third of his health. 

Octavian, despite his crazy look, at least waited until they got to the hall to say something. 

“Nico di Angelo?” he asked, taking a step forward that pushed Nico back against the wall. Octavian was a few inches taller than Nico, but just as skinny, and the Italian gamer knew he could take him if his got physical. It had been a while since he came home with bloody fists, but the instinct was still there, shifting below scarred knuckles. 

Octavian’s look was practically _murderous_ above him, and Nico was really worried that Octavian was going to hit him or something. Until he leaned in, smacking his hand up on the wall beside Nico’s ear, and whispered, serious as the grave, “If I were you, I’d start losing rounds, di Angelo.”

Nico blinked, looking up at Octavian with his best _are you shitting me?_ look. 

“You’re seriously threatening me over the results of a Street Fighter Tournament,” he said, tilting his head away from Octavian’s hand on the wall. “You get that this is stupid, right?”

The slap rocked his face to the side, stunning Nico more than anything. Octavian straightened, looking down the hall. “You should really start taking this serious,” he threatened quietly. “After all, you don’t want to wind up like Clovis.”

And Nico found himself walking back to the lobby in a daze, his hand still up on his face, feeling the hot blood pulse in his cheek. Percy and Jason were tapping away, and it took until Nico sat down for one of them to notice. 

“What happened?” Jason asked, laying a hand on Nico’s shoulder. The younger gamer dropped his hand, making his companions wince in sympathy at the bright red mark on his left cheek. Nico felt it sting in time with his pulse, a deep ache settling into his jaw. 

“Who did that?” Percy asked, throwing his phone down with an enraged look. 

“My last competitor,” he mumbled, still in shock. “He said I should start losing.”

Both the older gamers shared a look that spoke of murder, and Nico rushed to throw a wrench it that plan. “Which I’m not going to do, obviously, because this is video game tournament. I mean, this is ridiculous.”

Jason gave the mark on Nico’s face a pointed look. “It doesn’t seem like it to them.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing, Jason,” he said, feeling suspiciously like a teen girl talking to their mom. “I promise, Street Fighter isn’t going to kill me.”

 

Luke tapped away at his phone, hardly acknowledging Silena dropping down beside him with a frustrated sigh, a flurry of waist-length raven hair and neon pink. “How’d you do?”

“Like you don’t know,” she rolled her eyes, holding out her hand. Luke reached behind him, pulling out the silver laptop he’d been guarding while she was away. Silena crossed her legs, smoothing out her dress and resting her computer on her lap. As her computer loaded, she pulled back her hair into a high bun, keeping it out of her face. “I hardly won. You said the curb wouldn’t be that bad.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective, Silena.”

She huffed in response, pulling up the Lotus Hotel security feed. The Big Three were still in the hotel lobby, talking and looking at their phones. Unsuspecting. She smiled, her bright painted lips curved up into what looked almost like a smirk. “They don’t look worried.”

“Have they seen the page?”

“The hits by region went up right here in Chicago, so I’m guessing.”

Luke smirked, his scared face turning the look into a garish scowl that pulled at his scar. Silena did her best to look him in the eye, but inevitably, she traced the line in her peripheral vision. She’d always been fascinated by the mark. It stood for so much in Luke’s life, like the ring she wore for a ghost. 

“You know they’re going to think you’re crazy, right?” Silena asked, looking at the feed.

“Let them,” Luke answered almost offhandedly. 

“But-“

Luke waved her off. “It’s a kindness, Silena. Let them believe I’m sick. It’s better than the monster they’re facing.”

Silena looked up, resting her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You aren’t a monster.”

“Aren’t I?” he asked, looking down at his phone. “I know someone who’s going to find it hard to agree with you.”

On screen, Nico di Angelo stood up, grabbing his backpack. Luke’s eyes traced his movements, a smirk pulling at his scarred mouth. 

“We aren’t going to-“

“He’ll survive,” Luke assured her. “As I promised. But don’t think for a second that he’s going to have it easy these next few days.”  
Silena nodded, keeping half the screen devoted to Nico and the other half to Percy and Jason. “And the other two?”

“I’m not worried about them. After all, look at their next few rounds.”

Silena pulled up the list, dark eyes reading over the names with a devious smirk. “Oh, Luke Castellan, you are _evil_.”

He didn’t answer, just smiled, and entrusted her with his laptop, then headed off to his next round.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like writing Luke. Psychopaths are fun (more on Luke's condition to come, don't think I'm going the Silver Linings Playbook way and explaining batshit crazy as bipolar, we have standards here dammit). Comment: I love your comments, and I'd really like opinions.

Nico hated hospitals. The heart monitors monotonous bleeps always settled just below his skin, the heavy smell of alcohol and blood heavy in his lungs. The bleak white walls brought back memories he’d rather stay buried. But he would forgo all of that for people like Clovis. 

When Clovis woke up, His brother had made a post, thanking everyone for their well wishes. Nico had come down as soon as possible, exhausted from a day of running between what turned out to be twelve rounds. His jaw ached from the hit he’d taken earlier, the red melting into blue and black and purple over time. Clovis didn’t look much better, with the huge bags under his calf-brown eyes and his pale skin. But he smiled at Nico when he walked in, sitting up with a tired yawn.

“Hey, you probably don’t remember me-“

“Nico, you were my round two,” Clovis interrupted in a voice as thick as honey. “I remember you.”

Nico smiled in the awkward way you smile to someone in a hospital bed. “Yeah, that was me. I just wanted to come by and see if you were okay. I mean, I…”

Clovis gave him a sympathetic nod. “You feel responsible?” Nico looked down at his hands. “Nico, did you drug me?”

Nico looked up in shock, immediately shaking his head. “I wouldn’t-“

“I know,” Clovis nodded, blinking heavily. “That’s my point. It’s not your fault Nico. I mean, I heard someone tried to slip you something?”

“It didn’t work, I never drank it.”

“Good,” the patient told him, his features turned serious. “Be careful Nico. This isn’t a game anymore.”

“You don’t think they’d actually hurt someone, do you?” Nico asked, the idea still cemented in his mind, although warring with the sensible part of his brain that told him, _this is a video game tournament, no one would kill someone over a game of Street Fighter_. 

That made the other think, twirling a lock of straw-blond hair between nimble fingers as he considered his answer. Eventually, he settled on, “The type of person that would drug someone without knowing how they’d respond to that drug? They probably aren’t afraid of hurting people.”

Nico nodded, looking down at the powder-blue floor tiles. They didn’t shed any light on this mortal crisis, but they weren’t white, a color Nico was getting damn-near tired of seeing. His head throbbed at his temples, his cheek ached, and really, Nico wanted to go back to the hotel, get something to eat, and sleep for ten years.

But he had business to take care of.

 

 

The hotel’s security was a bit of a joke: Nico pretended to be Luke’s brother, and within two minutes, he had a room number and a floor. The ride up was spent in quiet contemplation, Nico running over what he’d say in his mind several times. He’d dropped off his backpack, armed with only a half-dead phone and his wits. By the time he’d reached Luke’s door, he’d ran over scenarios as plausible as getting kicked out of the room, to the impossible ones, like being flung from the balcony or fed to a beloved pet alligator. He was almost relieved when Luke opened the door and it didn’t reveal a dungeon. 

“Nico di Angelo,” Luke greeted in a way that would’ve been pleasant, if not for Luke’s monstrous smirk. The scar on his face turned the look into a dark scowl. “Where’s Dee and Dum?”

“Downstairs,” Nico replied casually. Luke’s dark eyes crackled with something like amusement, and he held the door open to let Nico in, and the younger gamer entered cautiously. The room was set up exactly like The Big Three’s five stories below, and so Nico moved with familiarity. He leaned back against the back of the same suede couch he was sleeping on each night, looking up to see Luke leaning back against the same door he knew was in his own suite. The idea that Luke was living in an identical space to him was unnerving, and the immaculate condition of the room even more so. It didn’t look like anyone had lived in the space in weeks, the only sign of inhabitance being Luke’s backpack and Silena’s purse on the floor near the man’s feet.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Nico looked to the balcony. The room was stifling, something the Italian had heard inhabitants of higher floors complaining about, and to combat that, Luke and Silena had left the balcony door open so the wind could filter in and cool the space. The sunset looked beautiful from so up high up, and Nico was glad for the distraction: Luke’s scar looked ghastly in the orange-red light.

“Let’s be honest with each other, Luke,” Nico said, his voice soft with the same exhaustion he’d seen in Clovis. “I know what you did.”

“And why do you suspect me?”

Nico scoffed. “Because coincidence is bullshit. And you smell like salt.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “Salt?”

“It’s not strong, I assure you,” the Italian replied lightly. “Of course, if you’ve ever had it, you know GHB has a salty taste to it.”

“How often have you had GHB, Nico?”

The younger gamer glared into Luke’s unforgiving eyes. They reminded him of a shark: no light, no emotion, no empathy. Just a dark, primal bloodlust. Nico thinks of the video’s he’d seen of sharks killing people, or killing their own. They had that same dead look that Luke Castellan perfected. 

“Often enough to know you reek of it. How much will hotel security find if I call them up here?”

Before Nico even registered that he had moved, Luke was in front of him, one large hand wrapped around his throat. Nico choked, bent over the back of the couch behind him by Luke’s free hand buried in his hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat. Nico immediately kicked out, but Luke was too close to take the hit. He leaned in close, his words a graveyard whisper in Nico’s ear.

“I could kill you. It would be easy,” he gave Nico’s throat a harsh squeeze to accent his point, and black spots appeared in the smaller male’s vision. “And remember? I’m crazy, everyone says. So I probably won’t even see the inside of a cell. They’ll say I didn’t know what I was doing, that I was unstable. You think you have power, Nico?” Luke hissed out, words like honey poured over steel. "You have _nothing._

And then, Luke let him go, tossing him to the ground like he weighed no more than a couch cushion and deserved no more respect. As Nico gasped for breath, the light filtering in through the open door turned blood red, drenching the scene in a muted scarlet. Luke smiled into the light, light that turned his scar horrific and his smirk devilish. “But I won’t do that, not yet. Because I want the pleasure of crushing you myself,” he said, his words so casual and innocent you’d never suspect their intent.

Nico had scrambled to his feet the moment Luke had stepped away, clutching his throat. In the movies, this is the point when the hero would say something witty and escape with his dignity. Nico, however, was not John McClain, and had no qualms with getting his ass out, dignity a lose thread that had needed repair for years.

Without comment, Nico turned and nearly ran out, slamming the door behind him. Luke just watched the sun set with a sigh, wishing the world could always be painted red.


	12. Chapter 12

Nico made it down to his floor in an automatic haze, pressing buttons and taking steps like a man headed to the gallows. His throat still hurt, but the pain was dulled by shock, by screams that raged in his ears like artillery shells. Just outside his door, Nico fumbled with the keycard, and saw a moment from years ago, when his key had slipped between bloodied fingers. For a moment the image was so vivid in his mind, Nico still felt that bone-deep ache in his scarred appendages. He steadied himself by looking at the scars, staring at them long and hard to remind him that they were healed, that years had passed by, and they’d turned to thin white lines lost in his pale skin. Nico took a breath, slotting his keycard in the door lock, and letting himself into the hotel room.

On the other side of his dead-bolted door, he sank to the ground, wrapped his arms around his legs, and buried his face in his knees. The younger gamer held himself tightly, trying to ward off that constricting feeling in his chest that clashed with his body’s intent to fall to pieces. 

Jason found him like this, the only one in the hotel room at the time, and sat beside Nico, a silent presence that the panicking gamer just barely noticed. Jason waited, patient as ever, until Nico loosened up just enough to burrow into his side, seeking warmth and comfort that the older gamer was quick to provide. 

“Want to talk about it?”

Nico bit his lip, staring firmly at the ground. His first thought, as it tended to turn when asked that ever-annoying question, was _not in particular_ , but at the same time the truth bubbled up in his chest, constricting his lungs in a grip that only promised relief if Nico came clean about what he’d just seen and experienced. That image of bloodied knuckles and slipping keys still hung at the corner of his vision, threatening to draw him back to dark moments.

“It was definitely Luke who poisoned Clovis,” Nico replied decisively after a moment of terse silence. “And he’s planning more. Good god, that guy is a Batman villain in training.”

The smile was obvious in Jason’s voice, and in the way his shoulders lost just a little tension. “Yeah? That make you Batman?”

“Makes you Robin, boy wonder.”

The found each other’s eyes, a silent message sent between them. They still had to talk about this, extensively, but something in Nico’s face compelled Jason to let it slide. “Who is Percy then?”

“Aquaman.”

They both laughed, not exactly because the joke was all that funny (although an image of Percy Jackson in green tights was pretty damn hilarious), but because they were safe and hundreds of miles from home, and sitting on the freezing floor of some hotel talking about useless shit, and for at least the next few hours, they had no one and nothing to fear. Sure, in the morning they had to face a crazy asshole with drugs, his psycho (girl?)friend, and compete in one of the biggest gaming tournaments of the year, but while the sun was down, they could pretend they were safe.

Eventually, they moved to the couch, talking and watching YouTube video’s until the subtle shaking in Nico’s hands subsided and his breaths came easier. The younger gamer found himself leaning back against Jason’s shoulder, both sharing a blanket, Nico’s computer perched precariously on their legs, and he couldn’t even remember leaning over. Jason had draped his arm over the back of the couch, but as time passed, it traveled ever-so-slowly to his companion’s shoulders. 

“So, I’m thinking of moving to New York.”

The line, true to Jason’s character, was dropped so casually Nico would’ve missed it if he was actually watching the video, rather than studying everything Grace. He whipped his head around and up, staring into Jason’s electric-charged eyes. “Huh?”

“Gearbox wants me for a few weeks, get some lines recorded and all, and after that, I was thinking of moving to the Big City. Closer to mom, I’ll get to see Thalia when she gets shore leave, and I have a lot of friends there,” he trailed off, but the implied _including you_ was evident. 

Nico’s mind short-circuited. “Wow,” he said, at a loss for words. “Does your mom know this? Or Thalia?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Nico couldn’t help but feel honored that Jason told him this before his scary Navy Seal sister, who would probably crush him like a grape if she found out. “Do you have a place picked out?”

“Not really, but I have time to look around-“

The younger gamer cut in. “I have a room, you know,” he said, almost conversationally. “It’s not Broadway or Battery Park or anything, but it’s in the city.”

Jason seemed to consider. “You sure your secret girlfriend won’t mind?” Nico rolled his eyes, punching Jason on the shoulder. “I’ll take that as a yes. We can talk details later, right now I have to show you this video.”

So they watched videos, and as Nico dozed off on Jason’s shoulder, he pictured living in the city with one of his best friends. 

 

Jason covered Nico with the comforter the younger gamer kept tucked away under the coffee table, smiling at Nico’s content, sleeping face. He hardly looked so peaceful when he was awake, but at night, tucked away under his comforter and sleeping soundly, all the worries and fears etched into his face during the day smoothed out, and he slept peacefully.

Percy came in a few moments later, smelling of alcohol but surprisingly nimble on his feet. Jason gestured him to be quiet, pointing toward the door of their room. Percy nodded, sending a sad smile in Nico’s direction before quietly making his way over.

Once the door shut behind them, Percy let out a soft sigh. “How’s he feeling?”

“I talked him down,” Jason assured the dark haired gamer, falling backwards onto his back with a tired groan. “Sorry I didn’t text you back, we were sitting too close for me to be discrete.”

“I’m surprised you even texted me in the first place.” 

When Percy had seen _Nico’s about to have a panic attack, give me some time to calm him down before you come back, I don’t want him to freak out if we both confront him_ , it took all his willpower not to race back to their room. He didn’t have the experience with panic attacks that Jason did after working for that summer camp for soldier’s kids when he was younger, but the only thing keeping him from bolting back to Nico was the idea of scarring his friend. He couldn’t live with himself if Nico was hurt because of him.

Jason looked up at Percy, closing his eyes contemplatively. “I was worried for Nico. And, I admit reluctantly, he likes you too, so I’m obligated to make sure you don’t go all Spider-Man 3 on us.”

Percy rolled his eyes, sitting on the edge of his own bed. “Thanks anyway, I guess.”

Jason’s lips quirked up in the tiniest of smiles. “Anytime, Aquaman.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

They both rolled their eyes, getting ready for bed in companionable silence. Tomorrow, the Semi-finals began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you write a fanfiction? Is it PJO? Link it in the description, and I'll do my best to check it out! I owe all of you so much for putting up with my crazy rants and infrequent updates, and this story wouldn't exist without your support (and a certain friend's bitching, <3) so I'd like to thank all of you. I love you guys <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am like Nico, in that I have no mom to celebrate Mother's Day with, so instead I wrote you guys a chapter of FH! If you're like me and don't have a mom to celebrate today with, that's okay, we can all make Batman jokes together and pretend we're Nico. <3

Chapter 13

The semi-finals listings were insane. That day, they were expected to go through another six rounds before they even knew finals listings, and just looking at the postings left Nico exhausted. He glared down at the energy drink he had in his hand, wondering if the risks were worth it. His hands shook whenever he wasn’t moving them, one of the warning signs his psychiatrist warned him about when he first started having panic attacks, and energy drinks were supposed to make that worse, but the night before his sleep was riddled with nightmares and restlessness. If he was going to get through the day, he needed some assistance. 

_Get through the next few rounds, and they’ll post finals tonight,_ he told himself, knocking back the can of Monster with a grimace. 

Percy found him still glaring at the listings, quietly struggling as Nico had when he’d first appeared, before finding their names, tracing their rounds with a sympathetic sigh. “Damn, we’re all going in flight A every time?”

“Look who you’re up against,” Nico pointed to the competitors, then pulled out his phone, showing his friend the chart they’d made the day prior, noting that each person was at least seven places above Percy, and then seeing the same pattern with Jason.

That morning, when he couldn’t get any sleep, he pulled the listings up from twitter (thank god the admin’s were insomniacs too, the list had been posted at three in the morning) and edited what they had: crossing off the knock-outs and moving every remaining members up, comparing his lists with the newest rankings and marking the outliers. Nico himself was at number five, while Percy and Jason had hardly moved up. And of course, Luke and Silena were a nice and unobtrusive twenty-three and twenty-six. If things kept up the way they were, Nico, the steadily increasing Luke, Rachel Elizabeth Dare (number one), Drew Tanaka (number two), and Clarisse Larue (number three) and Ethan Nakamura (number four) were the only certain ones. Slots six, seven, eight and nine (no doubt Luke would claim ten) were open, and Nico really hoped either Jason or Percy would claim one of those spots. 

“So what’s the chance of the Big Three getting into the top ten?”

“It’s about the same probability as you surviving a fall from the Brooklyn Bridge,” Nico supplied, crumpling the energy drink can in his hand. Percy watched him with an amused grin. 

“Nervous there Bruce Banner?”

“What is with you and Jason making comic book references?”

Percy shrugged, putting an arm around Nico’s shoulders and steering them towards their little area. “But let’s face it, if you’re any of us move on, it’s you.”

Nico sighed, still scrolling through the list. “That’s what worries me. Luke is tampering with results, he drugged Clovis, he,” he trailed off, touching his own bruised neck with a tired sigh. “What’s he going to do when it’s down to the final ten?”

Percy didn’t respond, but his hand on Nico’s shoulder tightened, holding the younger gamer just a little closer. “He isn’t going to do anything.”

Nico shared with Percy the briefest of smiles, a quirk at the corners of his lips, before looking back to his phone. “Gonna protect me, Aquaman?”

Percy rolled his eyes. “So that’s where Jason gets it from?”

They arrived at the couch just as Percy finished speaking. Jason was already there, speaking into his phone with a chipper, animated voice.

“Yeah, in the city too,” he said, waving at Nico and Percy as they sat down. “No, I found a place. I’ll be there by the time you get shore leave, so I can see you.” He paused, a slight frown tugging at his lips. “No, I haven’t talked to her. I honestly don’t think I will, either. She doesn’t even call me anymore, I can’t remember when we last talked.”

Percy and Nico went over the rankings list silently, doing their best not to eavesdrop, until Jason hung up. He smiled at his phone, turning to the remaining two of the Big Three. 

“Thalia’s going to be home for Christmas,” he said happily. Nico and Percy both shared in his sentiments, having met Jason’s punk-rock sister. The idea of having the two together in New York was enough to make the youngest of the Three actually get excited for the holiday season. 

“You’re moving to New York?” Percy asked, because at all times, Nico realized, one of the Three was out of the loop. Jason nodded, typing out something on his phone non-committedly. “The three of us in one place? How will the world cope?”

“Please, you two couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag, I think the world will be fine,” Nico joked, handing Jason his phone to go over the postings.

Percy snorted, rolling his eyes. “Saving the world can’t be all that hard.”

“I bet I could do it faster than you Jackson,” Jason replied, quick as lightning.

“Oh you’re on, Grace. Nico, threaten the world.”

“Why me?”

“You’re dressed in black, that means you’re the villain.”

“Have to agree with Aquaman and his neon orange shirt.”

“Hey!”

Nico laughed, a great, light feeling bubbling up in his chest. That’s why he loved Percy and Jason: they did their best to make him laugh, to lighten the tension. When they time came for them to go to their rounds, Nico felt like an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders. 

 

_Round One:_  
Victory- Nico di Angelo  
Victory- Jason Grace  
Victory- Percy Jackson 

_Round Two:_  
Victory- Nico di Angelo  
Victory- Jason Grace  
Victory- Drew Tanaka 

_Round Three:_  
Victory- Nico di Angelo  
Victory- Silena Beauregard  
Victory- Clarisse Larue 

_Round Four:_  
Victory- Nico di Angelo  
Victory- Jason Grace  
Victory- Percy Jackson 

_Round Five:_  
Victory- Racheal Elizabeth Dare  
Victory- Drew Tanaka  
Victory- Percy Jackson 

_Round Six:_  
Victory- Nico di Angelo  
Victory- Clarisse Larue  
Victory- Ethan Nakamura 

_Finals:_  
1\. Racheal Elizabeth Dare  
2\. Drew Tanaka  
3\. Ethan Nakamura  
4\. Clarisse Larue  
5\. Nico di Angelo  
6\. Malcom Minerva  
7\. Castor Pinot  
8\. Luke Castellan  
9\. Chris Rodriguez  
10\. Silena Beauregard

__Nico stared at the listings, his hands shaking by his sides. Percy stood stone-faced beside him, but reading that list, Nico didn’t notice anything but the names.

 _Seventh_ , he thought vehemently. 

“Nico?”

The younger gamer turned his head sharply at the quiet whisper of Percy’s voice. “Yeah?”

Percy stared at the list, taking a deep, calming breath. When he finally turned to Nico, his features were uncharacteristically blank. 

“Kick his ass.”

Nico looked across the room, to where Racheal was talking to Ethan in low, conspiring tones. Clarisse met his eyes with something akin to respect, nudging Chris and whispering something. From the way he nodded in Nico’s direction, they seemed to think he was worthy competition. The rest of the Ten, sans Luke and Silena, both seemed perturbed by the list. They all knew something was wrong.

“Percy?” the older gamer looked over, seeming to sense what Nico had already noticed. “It would be my pleasure.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck. I had exams, and finals are coming up, so I'm just sitting here hating everything. Thank you so much for your infinite patience, because I am a dick. If I ever go this long without an update again, find me and punch me in the skull. I'm so sorry. Here's Chapter 14.

Chapter 14

Sometimes, Nico really regretted his tone shift from plain Indy to Independent Horror games, because while he was in an understaffed market that gave him a considerably desperate fan base, it also meant that he was often left with the feeling that something vaguely wrong was happening around him. It also sharpened his instincts to an almost unbearable point: Nico never missed the subtle scares in levels or movie scenes, picked up on the body language no one else noticed, and saw even the smallest of text. Part of him wondered if that was gaming-honed instincts or paranoia, because both seemed rather likely. His neck still ached when he wasn’t doing something, and he saw blond hair out of the corner of his eye nearly every twelve seconds. 

Jason and Percy took Nico out to dinner after the postings made it, and the first few minutes were a quiet affair, where they all mulled over the details of the level of bullshit that just occurred.

“Eighth,” Nico eventually threw out. “Eighth and tenth.”

“I didn’t think he’d actually bring Silena all the way to the finals,” Jason replied, leaning back into his chair. Percy shrugged. 

“Do we really know anything about Castellan? I mean, we’ve known him for maybe three days and talked to him once or twice,” Percy mentioned, swirling the straw around his drink in a distracted manner. “And that sure worked out.”

Nico raised a hand to the bruising on his neck and wished, not for the first time that day that he’d taken up Peggle rather than Tekken. 

“We have no proof he’s cheating, getting it is suicidal. Luke’s more powerful than us, sneakier than us, and he’s in with the system,” Nico muttered, resting his head in his hands. “We’re going up against fucking Giants, and we are going to lose if we aren’t start about this.”

“What do you suggest?”

Nico paused, looking down at the table between the three of them. If this were a movie, he’d compare Luke to some video-game boss, and they’d write up some fantasy-based strategy while the camera zoomed out, cutting to morning so they could flawlessly execute a plan. But Luke wasn’t a game character, and Nico wasn’t the plucky protagonist of some poorly written movie. He had no witty banter to snap at the flamboyant villain, no super powers to pull out at the last moment. He was just an underweight 23 year old with half-hearted self-preservation instincts and a bottle of anxiety medication. Not hero material in the slightest. 

“I suggest we drink alcohol,” Nico suggested, standing up with a heavy sigh. “And I know just who to share a bottle with.”

 

Nico went back to his room to change clothes and grab his ID, then delved into the task of convincing Luke and Jason that he could go alone. 

“It’s the top ten, minus Luke and Silena, all together. It’s politics,” he rationalized, pocketing his phone and wallet and grabbing the leather jacket that made him look like an actual adult rather than a depressed twelve year old in an oversized hoodie. “I’ll be fine, I mean, all seven of those guys hate Luke, Clarisse and Chris alone will kick his ass if he tries anything tonight.”

“I don’t like it,” Percy muttered from the couch. 

Nico slipped on his jacket, checking that he had his key card. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for a perfect situation. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He made it down to the lobby companionless, crossing over to the hotel bar. The room was dark, lit by rose-tinted bulbs and candles, so that it took Nico a moment to adjust, ordering a drink while he waited. For a moment, he pretended he was just another normal patron, nursing a glass of scotch, here to drink and find someone to go home with.

Then he thought about Clovis, and went back to the mission at hand.

He spotted the Seven sitting in a corner booth, just large enough for the eight. Nico slid in next to Ethan, greeting the others. Racheal sat on Ethan’s other side, her bright red hair spilling over her shoulders. Clarisse sat on her other side, flannel shirt left open over a black tank top, rolled up to expose her tattooed for arms. Her boyfriend was reclined next to her, Chris Rodriguez, his arms crossed over his chest. Drew Tanaka sits across from Nico, all sharp angles and darkly lined eyes, her arm resting along the back of the seat, over Malcolm’s shoulders, who idly plays with a Rubiks cube, obviously ignoring the rest of the table. At the other end of the booth sits Castor, the most depressing person Nico’s ever met, nursing a glass of wine with a sour expression. Clarisse and Chris (Gin and Tonic and Jack and Coke, respectively) and Castor were the only one’s drinking until Nico appeared.

“Alright, what do we do about this?” Drew Tanaka asked, het coal-lined eyes tracing over everyone’s faces, sans the oblivious Malcolm.

Clarisse snorts, cracking her inked-up knuckles. “Well someone’s cheating.”

“No proof,” Malcolm interjected in his laconic manner.

Nico took a drink, sighing heavily into his glass. “And if it ever existed, it’s gone by now. Luke is thorough.” 

“Tell that to your neck,” Clarisse muttered darkly into her drink.

Nico looked down at the table, covering his bruised neck self-consciously.

“Don’t be a bitch, Clare,” Chris replied casually, putting an arm around her shoulders to assuage her angry huff. 

“I’m just saying, he can’t be all that thorough. He has to fuck up eventually. In fact, why don’t you go tell someone right now?”

Nico fiddled with the glass in his hands. “Because I have no proof. To be honest, I only followed up on my lead with Luke because I had no one else to look into.”

“I’m agreeing with Nico here,” Ethan offered. Racheal, Drew and Malcolm nodded their agreement. “Luke has to have been crafty to get this far.”

“Which means we have to be better than that.”

Malcolm looked up for the first time, his eyes sharp and concrete-gray. “What are the odds he wiped and changed hi IP, cleared his history, and wiped his hard drive to clear everything?”

“Hmm?” Clarisse asked, turning to the previously silent gamer.

“If he was in the server, that leaves a trail. He’d have to practically destroy his laptop if he wanted to hide everything.”

“Could you find that trail?” Drew questioned.

“I’d need the actual laptop, but I can do that,” Malcolm assured them.

Simultaneously, all eyes fell on Nico. 

“Fuck my life,” he said, standing up. He finished his drink, slamming the empty glass down on the table with a grimace. “If I’m not back in an hour, call Jason. This stupid game is going to kill me.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR IMPLIED SEXUAL ASSAULT.
> 
> And also some violence. Please refrain from reading the italicized part if you are triggered by sexual assault.

Nico borrowed Chris’ bag, a dark leather satchel that nearly matched his jacket, and went up to Luke’s room. He still had Luke’s keycard from that time he pretended to be Luke’s brother, tucked safely into his wallet. Nico took the elevator up, pausing in front of the door, knocking several times. When no response came, Nico used the card to pop the door open, sneaking into the immaculate room. Thankfully, Luke and Silena kept their bags by the door, and Nico was able to find Luke’s easily. He grabbed the device, shoving into his back and arranging it on his shoulder so that it blended well with his jacket. He was about to leave, when he heard a door creak open. Nico ducked behind the couch, thinking that if his life was turning into a bad action movie, he’d go ahead and embrace it.

“That’s pretty juvenile, Nico,” he heard Luke throw out from across the room.

Nico stood, looking over at Luke. “We all know you’re cheating.”

Luke smiled, stepping forward, Nico meeting him with a few steps back. “Scared?”

Nico shook his head, though his hand did find its way to his bruised throat. “You’re just another crazy prick with an Xbox, why would I be afraid of you?”

The scarred gamer laughed, low and creeping, like smoke over glass. Luke’s strides were longer than Nico’s, and the younger gamer lost ground with every step they took. Nico found himself being pushed around the couch and into the sliding doors leading to the balcony. Luke stopped in front of the short gamer, inciting a tense moment of prolonged staring. They both were silent for a long minute, until Luke slammed his hand up against the glass beside Nico’s face, causing the Italian to flinch away from him. 

“Luke,” the Italian gamer said quietly in warning. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Can I tell you something?” Luke asked in a quiet whisper, his mouth pulled into a devilish smirk. “I’m not as crazy as you think I am.” He laughed at Nico’s incredulous look. “No, really. You think I’m mental, but I’m not. This was a planned effort, di Angelo, it took months for me to get this together. You think I’m so bipolar that I couldn’t have a single clear-headed day? No, I planned this in every state of mind you can think of. I know what I’m doing, I know how to pull this off, I know everything. The only thing I didn’t account for was a whiny little shit like you,” he laughed, his free hand finding the strap of Nico’s bag. The younger gamer flinched, but Luke was so close, their faces just inches apart, that Nico couldn’t get away. “I mean, hot damn, you _broke in_ to my room, _twice_. That’s some actual video game bullshit, Nico. But you know what? I figured out what to do with you.”

Luke fisted his hand in Nico’s jacket, pulling his face even closer. The younger gamer grabbed at Luke’s hands, trying to pry them apart to no avail. He blinked once, and suddenly, he was flying backwards, his head slamming into thick Plexiglas, once, twice, three times. Nico’s head spun, his fingers going slack on Luke’s hand. 

“I’m going to win tomorrow, di Angelo” Luke said, emphasizing his point by slamming Nico back against the glass again. “I’m going to win, and you won’t even get to see it.”

Luke dragged Nico from the room, out into the hotel hallway, tugging him along by the collar of his jacket. He stopped several doors down, pulling a card from his back pocket and sliding it through the reader. Nico stumbled through the door when the scarred gamer pushed him through, falling to his knees and blinking heavily. Luke came forward, smiling down at Nico in such a condescending way. 

“Are you going to say I won’t get away with this? Something about morality or how I can back out of this?”

Nico kept thinking about action movies, how if this were one, he’d say all that. He’d be brave and fight off Luke with nothing but his wits. But in reality, his head wasn’t just spinning; he had left it in the other room. Blood dripped down his neck, curling around his neck and down to his collar bones. Nico couldn’t say anything, even if he tried.

“Well, I am. I’m going to win this, and you’re not going to stop me. Goodnight.”

Nico didn’t see it coming, but he felt the kick land on the side of his head, a pounding agony that sent him to the ground. He vaguely heard Luke walk away, but his vision blacked out, his hearing muffled. He didn’t lose consciousness in a dramatic, ‘wake up and it’s a different day’ kind of way, but awareness slipped from between his fingers, until the room around him, the empty space that Luke had filled with Nico and his pain, fell away.

 

_Nico stood beneath the street lamp, rubbing away a bruise on his arm. Hazel’s mother was manic at times, and she had drove him from the house while her daughter was at school. He decided to wander around, to wait until Hazel would be heading home to act as a buffer between them (though to be honest, she wasn’t all that better with her.)_

_San Francisco was foggy, the air like a canvas, and Nico didn’t know if that was an accurate description, or if his mind had just purged every detail it could. He didn’t even really remember much of the events, just snippets: a cascade of dark hair curtaining out the world, the thick smell earth, screaming and then something hitting him, blood in his mouth. He woke up at a bus stop, the night sky opened like a screaming mouth about him, wearing a jacket that wasn’t his and missing a shirt. It took him hours to find his way back home, an activity he did almost completely numb. Hazel screamed when she saw him, disheveled and bleeding._

_They found her, of course they did, she was so_ careless _. Her testimony was simple._

_“Any other boy would thank me.”_

 

Nico woke up screaming, shooting up into a sitting position. His head spun, but compared to the last time he was conscious, it was practically stationary. He got shakily to his feet, noticing that he no longer had Chris’ bag.

“Son of a bitch,” he cursed into the empty room, rubbing at the dried blood on his neck. His head had stopped bleeding, the shallow wound healing already, but it left him an absolute mess. Nico reached for his phone, thankfully finding it tucked into his jacket pocket, though almost dead.

The clock read 9:26. Finals started in four minutes.

_You’re concussed,_ he thought. _You should go to the hospital_.

He had almost 50 missed calls, from Jason and Percy, from Ethan, even one from Hazel, and his texts went on for ages, filling his lock screen. The last was from an unknown number, a simple message.

_Don’t let him win, Nico. Come back.  
~C_

Nico cursed, kicking open the door when the knob jammed and stumbling out into the hall. He didn’t take a second to recover, already headed for the elevator.

“I need better fucking friends,” he muttered, headed down to the lobby.

 

“Where is he?” Racheal hissed to Ethan, standing beside the one-eyed gamer on stage with the other nine finalists. Most were either looking at their phones or searching the crowd, looking at the clock. Nico had a minute left to show up, appearing after 9:35 resulting in an automatic DQ.

“Come on, Nico,” Ethan whispered, looking up at the clock.

_45 seconds._

“What if he doesn’t show up?” Drew asked.

“They get number eleven to replace him,” Malcolm responded easily, twiddling his thumbs casually.

_30 seconds_.

Clarisse suddenly yelled. “Wait, what’s that?”

The doors flew open, and suddenly, the crowd parted, letting a small blur of black through them.

_15 seconds._

With thirteen seconds to spare, Nico appeared on stage. Silena looked shocked, Luke’s face a calm mask. Nico didn’t even spare them a glance, already conferring with a judge. She grabbed the mic after a moment of discussion, smiling happily.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your finalists,” she said, reading off her list. Each member of the top ten waved upon their name being said, including Nico, who had arrived just on time.

The clock hit 9:35. Nico’s eyes found Luke’s down the row, fire sparking in the look they shared.

“Game on,” Nico mouthed.

_Round One: Racheal Elizabeth Dare vs. Silena Beauregard._

_Fight!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you guys thought I was going to make things easy for Nico! Final's are next chapter. Point's to any one who can guess who will win this.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update: I was at Akon all weekend, and before that, I had finals. But now I'm on break, and I can update more frequently! Huzzah for summer!

_Fight!_

Nico left the stage, jumping down to look for Jason and Percy. A fruitless effort when they found him almost the moment he stepped down.

“Where the hell were you?” Jason asked, pressing a bottle into Nico’s hands. Nico took a swig without question, soothing his parched throat. He had hardly gotten through the conversation without his voice cracking and leaving him completely. He was grateful for the water, nodding his thanks to Jason.

“Sequestered by the enemy, Grace,” he replied, shrugging off his jacket and handing it to Percy, who gave him a handful of hotel napkins in return. Nico poured some of his water over them, dabbing at the back of his neck t scrub off the dried blood. “They all thought it was a great idea to go fuck with Luke, spoiler alert, not fun. But I’m alive,” he winced when his fingers roved over the back of his head, over the place where he’d been slammed into the glass, “and I’m here now.”

“Are you okay?” Percy asked, eyeing the blood on Nico’s neck with a raised eyebrow.

“Honestly?” Nico asked, scrubbing at his neck even when the blood is gone. “I keep thinking of Gaea, and I think I’m concussed, and I’m pretty sure I’m up against an actual psychopath. But you know what? I didn’t come this far to drop out now. I know I should stop, go to the hospital or something, because _Christ_ , my head is killing me, but I can’t. Not after everything I’ve gone through for this.”

Percy and Jason shared a look for a long moment, before seeming to come to an agreement. Jason took the napkins from Nico’s hand before he could rub all the skin off his neck, and Percy touched the younger gamer’s arm softly.

“Kick his ass,” Percy said.

 

_Finish him!_

“Racheal Elizabeth Dare wins her first round,” the chipper announcer called. “Silena Beauregard has one more life: two rounds lost is an instant elimination!”

Nico nodded from where he was sitting with Percy and Jason. There were fifty chairs, give or take, left off to the side for the top ten and company, and the Big Three had sequestered seats near the front. Nico had seated himself in the middle, gripping a hand each from Jason and Percy as the next rounds started: Drew Tanaka vs. Malcolm Minerva.

“Are you sure you can make it through this?” Jason asked quietly, looking at the back of Nico’s head.

Nico most definitely wasn’t alright: spots were dancing in his vision, a headache throbbing away at his temples. He was exhausted, but his body thrummed with adrenaline, hurt in his throat and his fingertips. Nico wanted to go home and sleep for a week, get every trace of the convention out of his system. But there was one thing Nico wanted more than that, and if he told Jason that he felt any of that, he’d be in an ER by the hour’s end.

“I’m fine.”

The round went to Malcolm ten minutes later, and the next game was announced. 

“Clarisse Larue vs. Nico di Angelo.”

Nico stood, meeting the tattooed girl’s eyes from across the crowd. The met on stage, shaking hands, a courtesy shared between the original Eight, before heading to their consoles. Nico selected his character, watched the timer, and fought like he never had before. 

 

“And Silena Beauregard is eliminated!”

Nico sighed in relief, watching the girl walk off stage. She joined Luke, giving him a loaded sideways glance. 

“Now it’s just Luke,” he told Percy and Jason, leaning back into his chair. She was the third to be eliminated, after Castor and Chris. Luke, Malcolm, and Clarisse had one life left, Ethan, Nico and Drew had two, and Racheal had all three. 

“Next Round, Ethan and Malcolm!”

Nico watched his new friend take the stage, gripping his Percy and Jason’s hands nervously. “What if he wins?”

“Luke isn’t going to win,” Percy replied simply.

“He got this far.”

Jason answered this time. “That’s because he was cheating with the listings. There’s no listings here to modify, just plain luck. I mean, look at Luke now.”

Nico looked, eyes tracing the crowd until he found Luke. When he did, he studied the other gamer’s expression: chewing on his lip, rubbing his chin, wringing his hands and studying the screen intently. Nothing calm and serene, as Luke had so often shown. Nico nodded, looking back just in time to see Ethan knock Malcolm out of the running.

“Our top six have been selected!” she cried into her microphone, prompting a polite applause from the crowd. “Now, these next rounds are sudden death: one loss equals elimination!”

And so the rounds were declared: Racheal Elizabeth Dare vs. Drew Tanaka, Ethan Nakamura vs. Clarisse Larue, and Nico di Angelo vs Luke Castellan. 

Nico sighed, nodding his head. It _had_ to be that way, had to come down to him and Luke. Everything that had happened to him, every clichéd moment, all lead up to this moment. It was down to the two of them, and Nico was just given the ultimate honor: the right to knock Luke Castellan, the crazy bastard, out of the running.

Across the room, Luke found Nico, and the two gamers locked eyes with such a burning intensity that if someone were to step between them, they’d get burned. 

So Nico watched in stony silence as both Drew Tanaka and Clarisse Larue were knocked out. Finally, the announcer called their names.

The met on stage, not bothering with the regular formalities and heading straight to their consoles. Nico saw nothing but hate in his opponents gaze.

_3_

_This is where it ends,_ Nico thought.

_2_

He cracked his knuckles, touching them to the keyboard lightly.

_1_

He looked down at the screen, taking a deep breath.

_FIGHT!_


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well time to give my wrist a break, because that just now was the climax! I'm horrible.
> 
> But in all seriousness, we have a chapter, maybe two left, so this is the wind down phase. Question, please take the time to answer in the comments if you can, do you guys want a sex scene? I'd probably publish if post-finale as a separate work (do it for the kids and the non-shippers), but if you guys want, I'll do it(especially so I can fix the goddamned tags).I owe you guys for being such good readers, and if dicks are what it takes to show my unending gratitude, I'm more than willing to crank out some smut for the best readers out there. Bolding it so the fast scrollers will see: TELL ME IN THE COMMENT SECTION IF YOU WANT SEXY-TIME.
> 
> Love you all <3

Nico drew first blood, hands fingers flying over the keyboard so fast they almost blurred. Almost immediately, it was shown how ridiculously out of place Luke was. At times, Nico savagely beat Luke’s character across the screen, pulling combo after combo until Luke could get his feet under him. There was no finesse, no elegance, just savage hits and kicks meant to disable Luke’s character. Nico blinked, and when his eyes opened, his opponent’s health bar fell over and over again until it was so thin that he could hardly see it.

_Player One_ , the game growled out at Nico’s win. _Round Two._

Luke flinched with every hit to his character. He seemed to have improved though, managing to get in a few hits in amongst the slaughter. The lights were starting to bother Nico’s throbbing mind, a constant pressure behind his eyes radiating to the back of his skull. He found himself blinking more, his eyes heavy. He opened his eyes once to find everything blurred, and by the time his vision cleared, Luke had taken almost all his health.

The voice growled out _Player Two_ to signal the victory. _Round Three._

Nico fought. He fought through the haze, through the moments where he lost focus and the seconds he felt so intensely dizzy he thought he’d fall. The cheers bombarding him from every side fed the miasma in his mind, but his fingers were constant in their motion. Despite his bodies protest, Nico refused to falter.

_”We are, that which we are,” Annabeth had read to him once. “One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will…”_

Nico landed a kick that threw Luke across the screen.

_”To strive.”_

Luke stood, his character disorientated, and Nico met him with his fists.  


_”To seek.”_

Luke tried to block, but the ferocity of attacks sent in his direction made it impossible to not take any damage.

_“To find, and not to yield.”_

A sliver of health remained, just a centimeter between Nico and Luke. _Finish Him!_ the game demanded of him.

_Player One Wins._

The crowd erupted into applause so loud the stage shook beneath Nico’s feet. He blinked, staring at the screen above his fingers, declaring his victory. It took several seconds for that to register for the younger Italian gamer, but when it did, he burst out laughing. He shoulders shook with the force of his hysterics, grabbing the back of his throbbing head. Luke stared down at his screen, looking as if he were in shock. When he finally looked up at Nico, the younger gamer’s laughter had subsided, just in time for him to mouth a hearty _’fuck you’_ and jump off stage. He didn’t even have time to stumble before Percy and Jason appeared, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and waist respectively. 

“You did it!” Percy yelled over the din of the crowd.

Nico nodded, before he heard Jason’s next sentence.

“Now you just have to play Ethan and Racheal.”

“Fuck!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at the end, just to make sure: IF YOU WANT A CHAPTER WITH SEX, COMMENT. DO IT.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VICTORY SCREECH! We did it! Time for the wrap up, everyone!
> 
> Thank gods for you guys, my dedicated readers. I love all of you for being so supportive and friendly. Allmy love`

Telling Hazel was a bad experience all around. Nico called her from the hospital, still loopy on pain meds and riding out the worst of his symptoms. He somehow managed to get his phone, instinctively reaching out to his family. She cried when he talked about it, and with all the adrenaline gone, Nico broke down. 

They tried again the next day, avoiding the topic of Luke all together.

“So, how’d it go?”

“Third,” Nico told his sister, falling back on the couch with a sigh. “I was a little out of it, to be honest. They kicked my ass.”

“You won third with a concussion. That’s-“

“Stupid?”

“Impressive,” Hazel decided. “I’m impressed. But also mad you didn’t go to the hospital sooner.” He heard the smallest of whimpers at the end of her sentence.

Nico sighed, sinking down into the couch cushions. He’d turned out the lights and adjusted his screen brightness to the lowest setting, even turning down the volume to where he could barely hear it. “Paying for it now, sis.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“If I take it easy for a little bit. I postponed my flight, but that was more precaution than anything. I’ll be back to normal in a few days," he promised. His head throbbed with a growing migraine, but Nico already knew it would happen. He'd probably be dealing with the symptoms for a few weeks while his head sorted everything out, but the migraines were supposed to be a short-term side-effect. He had some heavy duty painkillers on hand if thing got bad, but for now, things were fine. Nico wanted to stay off the pills for as long as possible.

“Good. I don’t want you killing yourself over a video game.”

“With you on that, Hazel.”

 

Jason, to be fair, didn’t ask about it until Nico had a few days to rest and think things over. Percy had already left for New York, unable to move his flight schedule, so now it was just the two of them. 

“So you aren’t reporting Luke?” A fairly loaded question, one that the Italian had tried his best to ignore while he was recovering.

Nico, who had been idly tapping away at his laptop when Jason asked this, fingers freezing over the keyboard. He sighed, shutting his computer down and turning to the older gamer. “Luke’s fucking mental. He destroyed all the evidence, if there was ever any to begin with. Even if I file a report, it’s insubstantial at best,” he explained with an idle shrug. “My word against his, really. And considering we were competition, I don’t think my word’s worth a damn thing. I just… I don’t see a point in trying when I know it’s not going to work.”

The blonde considered this for a long moment. Nico opened his laptop and went back to typing, responding to the email Clovis had sent him. Clovis was back home, putting content up on his channel and generally putting his life back together. Nico was glad the guy still wanted anything to do with him.

“Very mature of you Neeks,” he finally said, standing up and ruffling Nico’s hair as he passed. The younger gamer rolled his eyes.

“Suck it Grace!”

“Maybe later.”

Jason would agree later that he totally deserved the throw pillow launched into the back of his head.

 

 

“Alright, I have to get to my terminal,” Jason said, looking over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. His flight left minutes after Nico's, and they'd spent a very frantic moment getting everything together. Now, saying goodbye, the blonde seemed reluctant to leave. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, call me when you land, we’ll-“

Nico rolled his eyes, wrapping his arms around Jason's shoulders. They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, before pressing their lips together in a soft, chaste kiss. Nico had to stand on his toes to reach, Jason ducking down the slightest bit, but they made it work, ignoring everything in the crowded airport that wasn't them. When they finally pulled back, foreheads pressed together, sharing short, panting breaths, Nico's flight was being announced over the intercom. 

“Gotta go, Grace,” he said with a smile, pecking his boyfriend on the lips one last time, before letting him go. “Have fun with Gearbox.

With that, Nico turned and walked away, smiling to himself and lightly touching his lips. Before he boarded his flight, he reached to turn his phone off, before seeing one last message from his departing companion.

_Run._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the PWP I promised:  
> 1) Will be Jasico, because I'd totally fail at a Big Threesome, and  
> 2)Published this week.
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr. The name is hyacinthusau. Follow for commentary, fangirling, and writing tips and discussions. 
> 
> Finally, I will be started a new story soon, another AU. Hopefully, it will be another good one. 
> 
> Thanks for enjoying the ride guys. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comment! I answer all comments. I hope you enjoyed~.


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